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Sword Art Online is an anime about an RPG MMO. If you don’t know what those acronyms mean, then stop reading. Actually, if you don’t’ know what RPG MMO means, I really got to wonder how you ended up at this blog. Maybe you need to check a browser setting, run a virus check, or adjust your mouse sensitivity, because you are in the wrong spot. If you are in the right spot, then you need to know that I’m probably going to say things about this series that could be considered spoilers. You can’t adjust your mouse to avoid that, but if you are afraid of spoilers, then walk away from the computer and call your mother. She worries about you.

Anyway, in Sword Art Online the players control the games through an immersive headset that cuts them off from the real world but allows them to control their player as if it was their real body. Only in this game something has gone wrong. Shortly after launch, the game wouldn’t let players log out. They are now trapped in the game while their real bodies are lying/sitting in the real world with the headset on. To up the ante, if the headset is taken off, they die. Also, if they are killed in the game, they die. The game creator doesn’t tell them why he did this, but the only way they can get out is to defeat the game.

The story mainly follows a player named Kirito as he wanders through the game. He was a beta player, so he knows the game better than most of the other players. He is also a loner, not affiliated with a group or guild. This is an important part of the story.

This review covers the first half of the first season.

The Good

I liked more about this series than I disliked. Maybe I’m predisposed to like something like this because I’m a constantly recovering and relapsing MMO addict. There are two things this series is doing so far that I like – it is giving me a character arc and it is giving me a variety.

Early on Kirito resists grouping up with anybody, then when he does it goes badly. He feels immense guilt about this, and resists doing so again. Then he meets a girl who he hits it off with, but she is kind of his opposite. She is a high ranking member of a large guild who are devoted to fighting on the front lines to defeat the game and free the players. At this point, the players have been trapped in the game for nearly two years. The story shifts from being about the game to being about their relationship and their relationship to their seemingly hopeless situation.

The other interesting thing the story is doing is variety. This could very easily be a series where the story is about dungeon delving, running quests, or fighting the big boss. While there are some episodes where this happens, there are also episodes that deal with how people are dealing and coping with their situation. People set up businesses, they become criminals, or they simply go fishing. This doesn’t sound like much, but it gives an anime about a game a very human feel.

The Bad

The art and animation is very average. Backgrounds a flat, not textured, and the color pallet is limited. The style is to animation what Calibri is to fonts – serviceable, sturdy, and won’t get in the way of anything else. The character design, creature design, and environment design all have this generic quality. Now I don’t demand that all anime be art – in fact when they try it most often fails, but I would like a little more wow when I watch.

The Other

There are some things that are just odd to me. This might be a reflection of culture differences, or just odd narrative choices. First, player loyalty to their guild is really important. The guild can dictate almost everything a player does. When players try to exercise freewill, it is viewed as an aberration and as the player being very disloyal. This drives several of the main plot points or character decisions in the first part of this series.

I like how they make game mechanics (health point bars, inventory, crafting skills) as being important. If you had to live like this, these ways of getting things done would be just as important in life as things like how to microwave a dinner, or drive a cars are in real life.

Final Verdict

I’m giving this series 3.5 out of 5 stars for the first part of the series. So far it has interesting characters involved in an interesting set of circumstances. They are managing to avoid the epidemic of endless angst meaningless inner monologs that is so common in anime (yes, I’m looking at you Attack On Titan). I’ve just got to the point where there is a major plot point and I’m very interested to see where they take the story from here.

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Note – I reviewed the first 12 episodes of this series on Feb 3, 2014. Some of the things I say here may reference what I said there. Funny how that works. This review will be mainly for the remaining 13 episodes, but will try to sum it all up in a tidy package (note to self: remove tidy from vocabulary).

Spoiler Warning – Maybe you haven’t seen this yet and are waiting with baited breath for my pronouncement on its worthiness and entertainment value. How wise of you. But, be warned, in my review I am probably going to say some things about the characters, plot, or setting that you would rather not know about until you see it for yourself. If so, then skip to the end of this review where it says “Final Verdict”. You will be missing out on my stunning insights, careful contexting of how this fits into dystopian fiction history, and a charming little anecdote about the time we fed the neighbor’s aggressive Mastiff laxative laced burnt hamburgers. Oh, yes, those were the days. Too bad about the neighbor’s drywall though. Now, if you have seen this show and want to read yet another fawning review about how brave this was, or how innovative this was, or how this was a brilliant outward expression of the sense of hopelessness felt by many of the young people of today, then you might want to move along to some fanboy site, ‘cause I’m pissed I wasted my time watching this whole series.

Summary – (Lifted from the previous review, feel free to skip if you already read it. Also, if you did, thanks.) “Attack on Titan” is set on an earth-like world (it might be Earth) where large carnivorous creatures called Titans have caused what is left of the human race to live behind a series of walls. The Titans are huge dumb naked humanoids without digestive systems or genitalia who seem to exist solely to eat people. This peace, humans in there concentric circles of safety and Titans on the outside, held for one-hundred years. Then a huge Titan appeared and breached the wall and the smaller Titans poured in like senior citizens at an Old Country Buffet. The story follows three survivors of the attack as they join the military and seek to beat back the Titans.

The Good – In my previous review I said there were three good points

The concept of humanity trapped behind walls by something they don’t understand,

Strong, stylized, if a bit simplistic animation,

the steampunky combat system that shoots out lines and then retracts them to Spiderman around the city.

I still think that last two are valid. I will add that this show didn’t do a bad job of handling a large, large cast of secondary characters. They all looked, acted, and sounded like individuals with logical, independent reasons for who they were and what they did. That doesn’t always happen in Anime.

The Bad – In the previous review I said I was liking it through episode six, and was getting frustrated by episode 12. The show was plagued by characters endlessly whining about their conflicts, taking the pace from spirited, to horse-and-buggy, then right to glacial (we still have glaciers, right? I can still use that reference? If not, look it up on Wikipedia). That problem not only persisted, but really became the whole show. The character focus loosened up a bit and several background characters were brought to the front of the stage. There they stood, took up space, and added nothing. We had the stoic young commander, the hot shot lone wolf captain, and several tortured yet doing their duty soldiers become part of the narrative without making it better. This “nothing happens but we stand around talking about what isn’t happening” is an anime problem. Naruto – Check, One-Piece – Check, it’s an epidemic. Attack on Titan does not quite offend like those two other shows, but it clearly didn’t get the free shot at the clinic when it should have.

Another fault is with logic. I bitched before that the only people left on earth were the stupidest ones because anybody could have built better defenses than they did. Well, that now applies to their military. Worst-Military-Ever. In the second half of the series they take an expedition outside the walls. The young stoic commander has devised a new scouting “formation” that will allow them to avoid the Titans and get to their goal where previous expeditions were decimated. The formation relies on a wide formation aided by signal flare guns. Different color flares have different meanings. This way they hope to avoid the Titans. We get to see the diagram of the formation maybe one hundred times and it never makes sense and clearly will not work. Then it appears that there might be a secret mission to lure a special female Titan into an area where it could be trapped, but only the commander and a few others knew about it. Rather than devising a good plan to do that, they come up with a formation sure to sacrifice as many scouts as possible. Think also, that their main mode of fighting, the 3-D devises, are suited to city fighting or maybe dense forest work, but they are travelling outside the walls across largely open plains. Did you think that maybe you should come up with some alternate form of defense? Nope. Did you think that given you don’t have a decent defense that maybe splitting your forces into smaller groups of two or three was a bad idea? Nope. Did you at least let the scouts get rid of the heavy 3-D devises so the horses would have a chance to out run the Titans? Nope, why should we, we are great 3-D fighters! Yeah there are other problems – no chain of command structure, no roles/responsibilities, and no concept of logistical support. This crew is the equivalent of a group of drunk teenagers going to party in the old spooky abandoned house in an ‘80s slasher film. Clueless and soon to be dead.

Finally, there is no payoff on any of the concepts, and this is what really pisses me off. There were interesting concepts with great promise, but we are all left hanging. Where do the Titans come from? How do they live? What was in Eren’s cellar that was so important to his father? What did Eren’s father inject him with? How did the female Titan come to be? Why did she work with the Titans?…. there is an endless list of interesting questions and concepts begging to be answered or explored that are just left on the ground like ripe tomatoes. Left to rot, never to reach their full potential when coupled with some fresh mozzarella and aged balsamic. The plight of the tomatoes is a tragedy, but the plight of all these really cool plot points is a freaking crime against the narrative gods.

The Other – Look out there is an obsession with gore and bodily fluids that someone really needs to see a specialist about. There is also the obsession with prattling on about one’s inner issues without ever coming to a conclusion or even trying to come to a resolution. It is like reading a self-help book that leaves out the help part.

After I finished the series I sought out other points of view. This was a fairly highly regarded title from last year after all. CrunchyRoll was chock full of five star reviews and praised the plot. Funimation has glowing review after review. Anime News Network gave it an A-, saying you could “overlook its flaws and revel in its sheer overwhelming entertainment value”. I have no idea how anyone could say any of that about this huge steaming pile of plotless, over-emoting, stupid, and illogical refuse. This is not ground breaking, or deep. It is a couple of striking visual images dancing around several malnourished concepts, strung together by lazy storytelling.

Final Verdict – The best way to judge a work is to ask yourself if the artist does something else, will I be interested? Here the answer is no. A resounding no. If I ever see something that says “from the creators of Attack On Titan” I will not watch it. I might take out a billboard in LA warning others of its presence. I might write to my senators asking them to ban its importation. I may go so far as to open a portal to another world letting Kaiju roam the ocean in hopes that they will find their way to the studios and stop this from happening again. One and a half stars.

Explanation of Stars –

One Star – was not worth watching, and I wonder why I did and how I got through it

Two Stars – Had significant flaws that interfered with the entertainment. I finished it but wish I could get that time back.

Three Stars – I finished and don’t regret the time I spent. It didn’t fail on any account but it probably didn’t shine either. I might be interested in something else, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to anybody.

Four Stars – This is good with minor flaws that border on nitpicking, if they are really flaws at all. I eagerly look forward to more work.

Five Stars – A four star work that really moved me emotionally, made me think in a different way, or introduced me to concepts I had never before dreamed of. Something I am still thinking about weeks later, in a good way.

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Spoiler Alert – This review covers the first twelve episodes of the twenty-five available on Hulu. If I say something that is countered in episodes thirteen or higher, keep it to yourself. Also, as I summarize or talk about the highs and lows of this series I might let slip important details that would ruin some people’s enjoyment of the series. If you are one of those, skip down to the part titled “Final Verdict”. By doing this you will avoid me clueing you into the fact that this anime is actually a media tie-in to the movie “Remember the Titans” as well as “Clash of the Titans”. So far, the football team has made Perseus be the waterboy, and Denzel Washington is keeps reciting bible verses and looking cool in his sunglasses. I’m sure it will all make sense in the end. Anime always does.

Summary – Attack on Titan is set on an earth-like world ( it might be Earth) where large carnivorous creatures called Titans have caused what is left of the human race to live behind a series of walls. The Titans are huge dumb naked humanoids without digestive systems or genitalia who seem to exist solely to eat people. This peace, humans in there concentric circles of safety and Titans on the outside, held for one-hundred years. Then a huge Titan appeared and breached the wall and the smaller Titans poured in like senior citizens at an Old Country Buffet. The story follows three survivors of the attack as they join the military and seek to beat back the Titans.

The Good – The story and setting concepts are pretty interesting. I’m not saying it all holds together (this is Anime afterall), but the idea of humans besieged by something they don’t understand has a lot of potential. The ecology of the Titans, how they live, what do they do outside of eating people… clearly does not make any sense and is setting us up for a big reveal of some time. I like that. There seems to be a world and a history at least sketched out, if not fleshed out.

The animation is good, to a point. They use good shading and color on the backgrounds to give the world an ok lived in look. The characters all have some type of distinguishing feature (a scar, a scarf, glasses, realistic hair…) to help you keep them straight. The action scenes are a bit weak, using the still images with lots of crosshatching rather than actual movement at times, but not so much that it detracts.

The primary mode of combat is a harness that shoots out lines then retracts quickly to propel the warrior through the air. It’s a bit like a steam-punk Spiderman set up. It is pretty interesting to watch and makes for good action sequences when they utilize it well, despite its utter implausibility.

The Bad – The humans that lived through the initial onslaught of Titans must be the dumb ones. With a little thinking they could have built much better defenses and created much more effective ways of killing the Titans than they have. Simply living underground would have saved them many of the problems they are having.

The creators of this show have an obsession with showing people’s reaction to horrible events. The camera lingers on their blank faces and open mouths as the character’s eyes,the eyeball not the whole eye, shakes up and down. This is useful once or twice, but when we are treated to every blasted character doing this over and over it gets a bit tiresome.

This show has a character problem. Actually, it has character problems, and we are privy to all of them. The viewer gets to ride along with the character’s innermost thoughts, hopes and fears. This would be good if it were just a few characters or if anybody could be concise. Neither is the case. An endless string of characters gets to inner monolog about how they are not worthy, how they are scared, or how they will overcome their fears and push on for duty. This is tiring. It is not interesting after the five of six times. It brings the story to a dead stop each time it happens. It is the perfect time to take a bathroom break and maybe get a snack.

This show started off with a good pace, moving through episodes one through six with a lot of story and character development. Then came “Attack on Trost” and this thing just stopped moving. It is not to Naruto/One Piece levels of tedium, but it is close. At episode twelve there is promise of story advancement, but I am tentative.

The Other – There is no fan service, but there is quite a bit of gore or other gross images. We get to see our hero in the stomach of a Titan, surrounded by blood and the pieces of other humans. There are a lot of battle carnage images and people getting eaten images. Yeah, no shortage of blood splatter. In a final image to be forgotten, we see that the Titans, since they don’t have digestive systems, puke up wads of people when they get too full. Pleasant.

Final Verdict – The best way to judge a work is whether or not you would watch/read another work by it’s creator. Since this review covers the first half of the series, this should be altered to “will I watch the rest of the series?” I am giving this a qualified yes. I have enough interest to watch more episodes, but if they keep just endlessly blathering on about their exaggerated feelings of inadequacy, I will bail on this series and just go read a wiki to figure out where the Titans came from. They have been warned.